A producer from Caught on Camera — what looks like a popular show put on by MSNBC contacted me recently to inquire about the footage I shot from my back yard just over a year ago of the San Bruno Disaster. I thought he was interested in licensing the footage but then he asked if I would talk about my experience of filming the days events that I caught it on camera — ON CAMERA (with his crew). So, just to make this very clear — I caught a tragedy on camera, so his crew wants to catch me on camera talking about what I caught on camera — it certainly offers one more example of the feedback loop in media. To further the feedback loop I should have offered to catch on camera, the MSNBC crew catching me on Camera, because I caught a horrific event on camera…..
Instead I said, what angle are you telling the story from? The MSNBC producer paused for a beat, then made some pleasant remarks and the whole filming ordeal sounded quite breezy and noble and grand. Trying to be a pleaser I said, OK. Behind that OK I thought, well, what the hell, he’s got fireman, local folks and a reporter who all agreed to be in the segment he’s shooting. How bad can it be?
An immediate sense of dread hit me.
I then went and watched a segment from the show available online called “Fury,” and it went something like this:
Enter young man who caught an event on camera (who happens to be a filmmaker and happens to have a mild daze in his eyes that says, YES I am ON CAMERA how cool is this!!)and he says something like: So my friends recommended this great restaurant and we went there and it was a really good time! Then he noticed an argument that he could tell was about to escalate so he took out his phone and started recording.
We viewers then enjoy some shaky low resolution footage of a fight about to break. (And then comes that litttle voice in your head, Fight, FiGHT, FIGHT)
cut to comment from restaurant manager: we found the two guests to be beligerent and using language that was not appropriate!
cut to: an entertaining scene where a fight breaks out and fists, chairs, as well as barricades become weapons of hurt!!
There is an admitted thrill to watching this material, its raw quality offers a satisfying appeal to the inner voyeur. I flipped to another segment called “Crash”and found myself enjoying as truck after truck drove under a bridge too low for their dimensions and found their tops peeled off much like a can is opened by a can opener.
I knew then I could not be a part of this show.
Still I agonized. Am I missing the 15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol proclaimed we will all be granted in this modern media age? Why don’t I want to be on this show? If I put it in pure marketing terms, it doesn’t fit my brand. If I put it in new age terms: I DO believe media is a feedback loop, what we put out influences thought, and THUS what is put in, and if we begin broadcasting media with heart and love and presence, we may find the world subtly and artfully changing. If I put it in terms I emailed to the producer: I don’t want to draw attention to myself. Yet, that’s not exactly true. I don’t mind if some of my friends notice I did something with all my heart and succeeded or failed, but I do mind if my friends attach me to a show that focuses on the outrageous, violence, disaster, etc… No no no thankyou.
Sitll I had to think about it. Which led me to further imagine, what exactly is my media policy for myself? If Fox News asked me on, do I say yes or no? If Oprah asked me on, do I say yes or no? (YESSSSSS! Oprah, any time, any day) Shouldn’t I have a media policy? Please also allow me to acknowledge the complete presumptuous egocentricity of this thought process, still, I don’t want to blow my 15 minutes of fame on any old raggy show. (Sorry MSNBC, but really! We can all do better!)
So this time I’ll say no to my 15 minutes of disaster fame (why did I even consider it?), still…Oprah, anytime you want to call I’m ready, I have some really cool colleagues and friends I want to introduce you to who are doing amazing work…. and I’m a small part of that movement…. ring anytime! DO!
Over the last weeks I’ve filmed at the Ethnic Dance Festival for the Ohlone Profiles Project, to document what everyone is calling the return of the Ohlone. At each event the folks like Ann Marie Sayers or Corrina Gould remind us that they never left, they were just driven from their original home in the bay area and now their history is finally being recognized in a beautiful way — let this just be the beginning!
June 3rd at city hall, Mayor Lee presented Rumsen Ohlone Tribal Chief Tony Cerda with the Festival’s annual Malonga Casquelourd Lifetime Achievement Award, which was followed by a presentation of song and dance. Last weekend the tribe was at the Yerba Buena Center (YBCA) where they performed, and at the evenings close held a healing ceremony for their ancestors who are buried below the YBCA and the Yerba Buena Gardens.
If you haven’t checked it out, the World Arts West Ethnic Dance Festival features bay area dancers performing dances from their culture and as Alastair Macaulay at the New York times puts it, “what other city in the world has anything like the ethnic dance festival.” It is truly a unique and powerful experience with dances from around the globe. This years dances originate from places like Peru, India, Lebanon, Hawaii, Mexico and yes, right here, San Francisco’s original people, the Ohlone. If you are looking for a meaningful event for your fourth of July weekend check out the Coastanoan Rumsen Tribe’s performance among other dancers at the YBCA Novelluss Theater on July 1, 2, or 3rd.
If you want to learn more and follow the latest Ohlone News, check out the Ohlone Profiles project. You might want to check out this bit of local while you’re here (why not, go for it!):
On Tuesday, May 3rd, a handful of people gathered in a grand room in the heart of San Francisco to watch outstanding indie films from around the world —Saudi Arabia, Australia, Hungary and the US—all to benefit youth programs. The line up was demanding, and amazing. We screened 15 short films back to back in the historic building owned by the Elks on Post street. The Elks are an organization that my partner in organizing the film evening (and member of the Elks), Roger, likes to point out, offer the most scholarships in support of education after the US government. They also like Elks, A LOT. Little, elks are woven into the fabric of the rug and stuffed Elks adorn the walls as if they are watching over the humans comings and goings with mild amusement. (Those silly humans, what are they doing now? Why it looks like they are screening films and using the proceeds to help provide scholarships for youth at Urban Services YMCA or TILT and other such grand ideas. Not bad, not bad.)
For many filmmakers it was the first time they had screened their film and/or the first time they had talked about their work before an audience. JR Stone from Kron 4 showed up to moderate the discussion after the screening and he was a natural on the microphone. DJ SIC filled the house with nice beats to start and round out the evening. Those stragglers who’d stayed the whole evening and beyond, ended up at the bar in what felt like a scene from cheers. Misfits, artists, film enthusiasts, friends, fans. We were all there to celebrate how it all starts — humbly, simply, yet with quiet dignity and great intention.
To all the filmmakers out there who sometimes throw up their hands in frustration thinking — I must be crazy — keep working. To all the artists out there who break down sometimes because there is never ever enough time for doing the art you love — keep working. For all those out there with a dream, that can at times seem impossible — keep working. Keep taking one step at a time. It is your dreams, the beauty in the moments you work on what you love that make this world tolerable at all. Continue to spin moments of flow, to weave imagination and magic and bring to life your unique gift that you have to offer this world. And thank you, THANK YOU for doing so.
I am so so so grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in the BAVC Producers Institute with our team at Sacred Land Film Project (SLFP), Toby, Jennifer and Quinn and our partner Dorothy Firecloud from the National Parks Service. As I blogged here for SLFP, the producers institute is an intense new digital-media boot camp leading to a project presentation before a packed house at the The Center in San Francisco.
For 10 days our team was immersed in learning about emerging new media technologies, how to harness them for social and environmental justice, how to nurture and grow communities, and how to motivate positive action using these exciting new tools. Topics ranged from alternate, augmented, virtual and hybrid digital reality, web 3.0, the “intelligent web,” data visualization, interactive mapping, to twitter strategy and crowd sourcing. We were surprised to learn that we are no longer filmmakers, we are “screen content producers!”
I’ve finally posted What Brand Are You? to the world wide web. Dubbed “a visual rollercoaster through the dizzying world of pop-culture,” and “investigative journalism on party drugs,” by The Sydney Morning Herald’s arts writer Tracey Clement, What Brand Are You? is a 30 minute hybrid documentary that merges MTV music video with broadcast journalism to explore personal happiness in a consumer society and our emotional relationship with brands.
In March, women made film history. How apropos as it’s women’s history month. Kathryn Bigelow landed an Oscar for best director after 30 years in the business. In its 82 year history, the Oscars had never voted a woman as best director and have only nominated four (Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Lina Wertmuller and Ms. Bigelow). She also took home the Director’s Guild of American prize, the first woman to do so in its 60 year history.
The recognition she gained made me stop and take notice, to test the wind; has something changed? Are we moving into a new era? Has the measuring stick moved? Perhaps something in 2010 is different?
No sooner than thinking it, I heard a BBC radio debate/discussion that popped with energy and emotion, the reason? A blog titled “A Rant About Women” by Clay Shirky, an NYU professor. To recap his thesis, he says that “not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks,” and women need more “role models who are willing to risk incarceration to get ahead.” I am pretty sure that despite his wish for more females that behave like Bernie Madoff to pave the way for other successful women (what?), Mr. Shirky’s rant intends for women to gain more of what they want. Read more at Conducive Chronicle
Google recently announced that in three years time the desktop will be obsolete. Perhaps we are just steps away from all memory stored outside of the Internet being obsolete? Why can’t I just plug my brain into the Internet and skip all of this gadgetry nonsense anyway?
We haven’t figured out how to do that yet, (though scientist are working on it) and until then we are plugged in through our technical interfaces like, laptops, iPhones and Palm’s etc…
In fact, we are so plugged in, that our brains are rewiring in very mysterious ways.
The comparisons between North America’s First People and the Na’vi is direct in James Cameron’s Avatar, a film that surpasses the hype and draws you in literally with its 3D technology so real you feel like you can reach out and touch it. I walked out of the theater wanting to be a Na’vi who lives on Pandora. If you’ve missed the back story you can brush up here, where Roger Ebert suggests that we can find allegory about contemporary politics in this film and that we can, but we can also discover an echo of the deep roots, the very foundations of America in the story of Avatar. Just as the humans went to conquer Pandora so the Europeans came to America to claim it as their own. Fast forward to modern times and the land left to Native Americans just happens to sit on top of some of the most coveted resources from gold on Western Shoshone land to coal on the Navajo Reservation to prime real estate on the San Francisco Peaks, to oil in Canada where the largest modern ecological disaster is unfolding in Alberta and altering the lives of Canada’s First Nations. So it is on Pandora where the humans want the resources underneath the Na’vi’s home.
CNN’s Tom Charity dubbed it “dances with wolves in outer space” as a marine becomes Na’vi, but I think he missed the point. Avatar is about us finding our way home, to our true selves. This is about human beings on earth coming back to our connection. What makes us feel alive? Do you feel alive? Are you happy with the way the world unfolds around you? Maybe it’s time to wake up. Are we awake? Can we wake up? What do things look like if we wake up? Does the most coveted thing still look like money? Do we still worship it as our motivating God or does that change?
Mr. Cameron spins dreams like a master weaver. I could see you and me reflected in this film and I could dream a new story for our future, one where our collective human culture reconnects to reverence for the land, and respect for the reason we can sustain life at all, our earth. I could dream that we would discover the fundamental beauty in the world around us and our power to shape it with the choices of the everyday. Pandora and the culture of the Na’vi calls to me, not because of its fantasy, its outerspace otherness, but because it is our own story waiting to be told.
The projections onto Coit Tower were a great success! Both evenings (the 25th and 26th) were warm and clear and a group came up to the tower to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Indian’s of all tribes occupation of Alcatraz and to start a conversation about San Francisco’s first people, the Ohlone. The press also showed up. CBS 5′s, Don Knapp did a piece so did Dana King and Phil Matier. Anna Bloom also did a nice write up and video (see below).
I was in awe to play a small role in this event. Some of the films were:
-Alcatraz Is Not an Island (James Fortier)
-Rendezvouz with Alcatraz (Ben Wood & David Mark)
-Welcome to Ohlone Territory (Marlo Mckenzie and Neil Maclean)
- Ohlone Families (Charlene Sul, Anthony Sul )
-San Bruno Mountain (Keith Moreau and Sam Ellis Moreau)
-Native America segments by Lorenzo
Santa did not bring me the Barbie Video Girl this year... perhaps next. (sigh)
; - ) http://t.co/XnHtJSO2 2011/12/26
RT @freerangestudio: Very cool -- a blog post on the @gatesfoundation blog called, "Can Stories Save Lives?" I think we know the answer! ... 2011/12/23
This video by @WomensEarthAlly and @freerangestudio is media at it's best and brightest http://t.co/H1riaf9f 2011/12/23
